Sharky's Machine

Chapter Nine

The ant was as big as an elephant. It crawled across the ceiling and Sharky watched it, wondering what it was doing on the roof of a twelve-storey building and why it even wanted to be there at all.

Sit and wait. Boredom. The curse of the stakeout.

At least Livingston had provided him with what Arch called his stakeout kit — an army cot, blanket, hot plate, and several packets of instant soup and coffee. It helped. They had also left a car on the street below near the exit of the apartment parking deck in case he had to tail her.

But he had nothing to read. After all the stakeouts Sharky should have remembered something to read. And he would be there until Papa relieved him at eight A.M.

He lay on the cot with the blanket under his head and the earphones on and watched the ant scurry across the ceiling and start down the wall. The recorder for Domino’s living room whirred quietly on the floor near the cot. The radio was on. Led Zeppelin boomed in his ears.

She was moving around, singing to herself, the recorders for the bedroom and massage room cutting on and off as she went from one to the other. She was in the master bedroom when she made the phone call.

‘Hello, is Mister Moundt there, please? . . , Hi, it’s

Domino. . . Fine, and you?.. . Oh, you do? Wonderful. I

was afraid it wouldn’t get in. . . . Thank you, that’s so sweet.

It’s for tonight. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.

Wonderful, I’ll be by in a few minutes. Bye.’

Good. He could pick up a paperback or some magazines. He pulled on his suede pullover, smoothed back his hair, and walked down to the ninth floor, making sure the elevator he took did not stop at ten. He did not want to end up in the same elevator with her. He walked through the cold drizzle to the stakeout car, a blue Chevy, got in and waited. A few minutes later the gate swung open and the blue Mercedes pulled out.

He followed her down Peachtree Street, staying several car lengths behind her. When she turned into the lot at Moundt’s he drove past, u-turned, and ambled back, giving her time to enter the store.

Moundt’s was a gourmet supermarket, possibly the best in the city, it had two entrances, the main door on Peachtree Street and another through the side that led past a snack bar. He got a cup of coffee, stood in the doorway, watching her as he sipped it. She was in the rear of the store, talking to Moundt, a tall, grey-haired, amiable man who seemed to know her well. He gave her two cans which she put in her shopping cart.

Supposing she makes you? Sharky thought. Remembers you from the elevator?

He went to the fruit department, got some white seedless grapes and half a dozen hard apples, then cruised the store, staying two or three rows away and well behind her. He reached the paperback rack and, keeping his back to her, looked for a book. He selected a thick novel by Irwin Shaw, then turned cautiously, and looked back over his shoulder.

She was gone.

He moved towards the checkout counter, peering over the tops of the aisles. As he reached the end of the aisle she stood up. She bad stooped down to get some crackers and now, suddenly, they were face to face, an aisle apart.

He left the basket, went back up the aisle, aimlessly searching the counters as though he had forgotten something. She was facing the other way when he came back and be pushed his cart hurriedly to the checkout counter.

An elderly lady got there at the same time. He smiled, reluctantly, and motioned her in front of him.

Goddamn, she must have fifty dollars’ worth of stuff in that cart.

He watched her put the items on the checkout counter. It took forever. Sharky waited. Then he casually turned sideways and looked back over his shoulder towards the store.

Domino was standing there, right behind him, three feet away.

Well, shill

She smiled at him, blue eyes crinkling at the corners. His nose is broken. How interesting. We seem to be following each other,’ she said pleasantly.

Do something, stupid, don’t just stare at her. He smiled back. ‘Looks like it, doesn’t it?’ he said.

‘You live in the neighbourhood?

‘No,’ he said, then realized it was a stupid answer and added quickly, ‘I like to shop here.’

‘Me too. It’s my absolute favourite.’ I’d like to reach up and just touch him, there between the eyes. ‘Are you going to be working in the building for long?’

‘Well, uh, I, uh, yes, a couple of days.’ Neat, Sharky. Why don’t you give her an itinerary? Show her your shield. Take out the old pistol and spin it on your finger, do a couple of John Waynes for her. Back out of the conversation. You’re blowing is. Putting ii all in your mouth. Foot, socks, shoe, the works.

And she thought, He’s interesting. Trim and hard, almost skinny. Faded green eyes, very warm. And that flat place across the bridge of his nose. He’d be pretty if it were not for that.

He was staring into her shopping cart.

‘Shark’s fin soup?’ he said with surprise.

‘Have you ever tried it?’ I’m glad he’s not pretty. Good God, what are you doing? Getting off on his broken nose!

‘I’ll be honest with you,’ he said, ‘1 never heard of shark’s fin soup.’

His eyes wandered. She was wearing a tee-shirt with ice cream written across the chest in dribbling letters, as if it were melting, and tight Italian jeans that hugged her ass and a fur jacket that looked like it would have cost him a year’s salary. There was no doubt about it — she was something special.

‘It’s quite a delicacy,’ she said, ‘Mister Moundt ord —,

She stopped, aware that he was not listening, that he was looking, no he was lost in looking at her. And she liked it. It seemed open and honest and it felt good to her and she looked him over again, admiring the way he held himself, loose, like an athlete, and confident.

She looked back at his eyes and a moment later he looked up and knew he had been caught.

He’s blushing! I haven’t seen anyone blush since college. She turned it on, staring hard into his eyes. The lady at the checkout counter was almost through. Do something. He’ll be gone in a minute or two. ‘I think you should try it,’ she said.

‘Try what?’

‘Shark’s fin soup.’

She’s making a pass, Sharky. ‘Well, I, uh, yeah. . . you know, one of...’

‘1 mean today.’

‘Today.’

‘Urn hum, today. About six o’clock.’

‘Six o’clock today?’

‘I’m making it for a friend. I’ll be finished cooking it by about six o’clock.’

She bored in with the blue eyes and be just stared at her, half-smiling.

‘10-A,’ she said.

‘10-A.’

‘10-A, six o’clock.’

‘Right. 10-A, six o’clock.’

What the fuck!

She smiled. ‘Splendid.’

He sat on the edge of the cot and nibbled grapes and tried to read, but his eyes kept wandering to the tape recorder. Finally it clicked and he slipped the earphones over his ears and shoved the monitor button, heard her close the door, followed her footsteps into the kitchen, listened to the rattling of paper bags, the refrigerator door opening and closing, pots slamming about, heard her singing to herself, filling in forgotten lyrics by humming.

She went into the living room and he could hear her shuffling through record albums. She put one on and the softness of a guitar took the edge off the hollowness of the room. A moment later Joni Mitchell’s plaintive voice came on singing the plaintive lyrics to ‘Harry’s House’.

Sharky’s mind wandered back to a high school picnic and a girl in a bright yellow bikini that barely covered her swelling breasts and she had turned out to be, what was her name? Mary Lou? Mary Jane? Mary-something-or-other, who had suddenly grown up, and remembering her, he made up aimless lyrics to a nothing song:

‘Baby did I lust for you,

Da da do da do da do,

And everybody else did too,

Dadadada da da da...’

He heard the sound of water running in the bathtub and he forgot the yellow bikini bathing suit and Mary-something- or-other and thought about Domino taking off the tee-shirt with the melting ice cream, envisioned her slipping off the tight Italian jeans, pictured her in his mind, naked, and he closed his eyes.

She poured bath oil in the tub, turned, and looked at herself in the full-length mirror and, singing along with Joni Mitchell, slowly stripped off the shirt, let it fall away from her shoulders, turned sideways, and studied her breasts, was pleased that they were still firm, curving up and away from her body, reached up under them and traced the curve with her fingertips, sliding her fingers out to the nipples, and squeezed them gently, watching them grow hard at her touch. She unbuttoned the jeans, pulled them over her hips, let them fall to the floor. Her panties had pulled down too, and she looked at her hair curling up over the top of them and ran her hand across the flat surface of her stomach, let her little finger slip down under the band, enjoyed the softness, and finally edged them down and stepped out of them, running her hands down the insides of her thighs, letting her thumbs ripple across the thick black down.

The beat of the music began to change to the blues and she hummed as Joni Mitchell sang:

‘The more I’m with you, pretty baby,

The more I feel my love increase,

I’m building all my dreams around you

Our happiness will never cease.’

She tested the water with a toe, slipped down into its oily warmth, let it envelop her, and lay back with her eyes closed, caressing her legs, her thighs. Her thumb found her belly button, lingered at its edge while the rest of her fingers slid down between her legs and she slowly pinched thumb and fingers together, lightly, slowly, and she thought about the elevator man, about his trim, hard body, the rugged face, the shattered nose.

‘We’ll find a house and garden somewhere

Along a country road a piece,

A little cottage on the outskirts

Where we can really find release,

‘Cause nothing’s any good without you.

Baby, you’re my centrepiece.’

And while Domino prepared herself for Victor, thoughts of the elevator man kept intruding. Intruding. Intruding...

She opened the door on the first ring and stood facing Sharky, her chin slightly raised, an arrogant, almost impish look on her face, her thick black hair, not quite dry yet, hanging damply about her ears. She wore no makeup. She didn’t need it and she knew she didn’t. She was wearing a scarlet floor-length kimono, silk, trimmed in brilliant yellow and split up both sides almost to the hip. There was nothing under it, nothing but her; he could tell by the way it stayed with her, moulded to her breasts, her hips, her flat stomach. Her eyes sparkled mischievously. The sweet odour of marijuana drifted past Sharky.

She smiled and said, ‘Well, I just lost a bet with myself.’.

‘How come?’

‘I bet you wouldn’t come.’

‘I can always go back.’

She stepped back, swung the door wide and leaned against it, cocking her head to one side. ‘No,’ she said, no, I don’t think so.’

He went past her, into the familiar living room, looked around, and feigned surprise. ‘Very elegant,’ he said, nodding his head.

She closed the door and came very close to him, staring up at his face for several seconds, then said, ‘Thank you.’

She had set a place for him on the smoked-glass table. A linen placemat with delicate silverware, Wedgwood china and a tall, fragile wine glass. ‘If you’d like to wash up, you can go in there,’ she said, pointing to the bathroom. The door to the massage room was closed. He went into the bathroom and washed his hands. Patches of mist lingered in the corners of the mirror and the room was warm with the memory of her bath and smelled vaguely of bath oil.

When he returned, she was pouring white wine into two glasses. She motioned for him to sit down. Soup steamed in the bowl.

There was a record playing, a soft ballad sung almost off-key by a Frenchman.

‘That’s a very pretty song,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.’

‘It’s called “The Dreams In Your Soul”. It’s my favourite song. That’s Claude DuLac. He’s very popular in France but it’s hard to find his albums over here. Americans don’t appreciate romantic singers anymore, do you think?’

‘No, I agree with you.’

I’m glad you like it.

‘I’m . .

‘Yes?’

‘Nothing.’

You’re getting pushy. Don’t rush it.

He swirled a pat of butter into yellow patterns on the surface of the soup. She raised her wine glass towards him.

‘Bon appétit,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

The glasses pinged as they touched. She leaned forward on her elbows, holding her wine glass between her finger tips, and stared at him again, the blue eyes digging deep.

‘I have to ask you something,’ she said, very quietly, almost confidentially.

Jesus, does she know? Does she suspect? ‘Fire away,’ he said.

‘How did you get that?’ she asked, pointing towards his nose.

‘What?’

She reached out and ran her middle finger very delicately down between his eyes, lingering for a moment where his nose flattened out between them. ‘That,’ she said.

‘Oh, that.’

‘Urn hum,’ she said, adding, ‘If it’s something unromantic, like you got it caught in an elevator door or something, lie to me.’

‘The first thing they teach you in elevator school is not to get your nose caught in the door.’

She laughed and the laugh became a smile and stayed on her lips.

‘Well, when I was in high school there was this bully named Johnny Trowbridge and he hit me with a brick.’

She paused and then laughed again. ‘Really?’

Really.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘He was about, uh, three feet taller than me, so I went to the Y and I took boxing lessons for six months and then I beat the living bejesus out of him.’

She was laughing hard now and she shook her head. ‘Did you really?’ she said, ‘did you really do that?’

‘I really did it. Acceptable?’

‘Oh, yes. Oh, absolutely. If it’s a lie, don’t change it.’

It was a lie, although a bully named Johnny Trowbridge had hit him with a brick and be had taken boxing lessons and a year later he’d kicked the shit out of Johnny Trowbridge. But his nose bad been broken in an alley behind the bus station when he was a rookie cop. A drunk had scaled the lid of a garbage can straight into his face with uncanny accuracy.

She sighed. ‘I’m so glad we got that settled.’

‘What?’

‘The business about your nose.’

‘Does my nose bother you?’

She shook her head very slowly, staring at it. ‘No. It gives you character.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Eat your soup before it gets cold.’

Upstairs on the roof the tapes were whirring, recording their conversation. He could envision the rest of the machine listening to it in Friscoe’s Inferno. He knew what The Nosh would think. But how about Friscoe? Livingston? Papa? And The Bat! The Bat would have a coronary. He would sit in his office and his face would turn red, then blue, and he would clutch his heart and make a face like a fish out of water, and he would fall dead on the floor. I may have to erase this tape.

He raised the spoon to his lips, sipped the soup. It was unreal. Fantastic. Soup wasn’t the right word for it. It was nectar. He held it in his mouth a moment, savouring it, before he swallowed.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘It’s . . . incredible.’

‘Incredible good or incredible bad?’

‘Good? Hell, it’s . . . historic.’

‘Historic’! What a wonderful choice of words.

‘Of course I’m not an expert. Is your friend Chinese? ‘No, but he lived in the Orient for years.’

Is he the mark? Is the dinner tonight part of the set-up?

Sharky decided not to push it. ‘Do you pick up strays in the supermarket very often?’ he asked.

‘Only in Moundt’s. .1 would never pick up a stray in just any market.’

He laughed.

‘Actually I felt kind of sorry for you. You looked so forlorn, wandering around, trying to decide what to buy. I can usually spot a bachelor in the market. They can never decide between what they want and what they need. In the end it’s a disaster.’

She leaned forward and stroked the broken place on his nose again. He felt chills. It was like school days again. He was reacting like a kid. But he liked it. You can keep your finger there for the rest of the night, he thought. You have fingers like butterfly wings.

‘You know something,’ she said. ‘I don’t know your name.’

‘That’s right, you don’t.’

‘What is it?

‘Sharky.’

‘Sharky what? Or is it what Sharky?’

‘Just Sharky. How about you?’

He reached out and ran his finger down between her eyes, felt the tip of her nose.

‘D-D-Domino.’ My God did I stutter?

‘Domino?’

‘Um hum, just Domino. Like just Sharky.’

He smiled and nodded and took his hand away and she wanted him to leave it there. ‘That’s fair enough,’ he said.

It went on that way. Small talk and jokes. And occasionally they touched, no — brushed, as if by accident. They flirted with subjects, never getting too personal, keeping it light.

‘Did you ever play football?’ she asked. ‘You look like you played football.’

‘I thought about it in college, but I wasn’t good enough.’

‘Where did you go to college?’

‘Georgia.’

‘What did you study?

‘Geology.’

‘Geology?’ she said, surprised.

‘Sure, geology.’

‘Why geology?’

‘I like rocks,’ he said.

‘Okay, so why aren’t you a geologist?’

‘Well, it was like, uh, there wasn’t a lot happening in geology when I finished.’

‘You spent all that time and then just. . . forgot it?’

‘It made my father happy. He took out an insurance policy when I was born, and when I graduated from high school, he handed me the cheque. It was a dream of his, that the kid should go to college. So he deserved it.’

You’re a nice man, Sharky, she thought. Naive, maybe, but what’s wrong with that? ‘That’s a generous thought,’ she said.

‘Look, T like my old man. He was always good to me. It was something I could do back, make him happy. What the hell.’

‘I liked my old man, too,’ she said, without thinking, then wondered whether she should have brought it up.

‘What was he like?’

She could make up a story. She was used to that. Something glamorous, something they wanted to hear. She didn’t.

‘He was a mining engineer. Well, actually he was a roustabout, you know. He loved brawling and whoring and drinking with the boys. Mister Macho, that was old Charlie. The word was invented for him. Itchy Britches, mom called him. We went wherever the action was. I grew up in one temporary town after another. They were always either too muddy or too dusty. Mom still says the saddest thing about losing Dad was that he died so ingloriously. He really would have liked to go out in a blaze of glory like Humphrey Bogart in some old movie. Instead, he died in a miserable little town called Backaway in Utah. He came home one afternoon, got a beer and the paper, sat down in his favourite chair, and died.’

She seemed weighed down by the memory. Sadness crossed her face, very briefly, like shadows on a cloudy day, then it passed.

‘Well,’ Sharky said, ‘I’m sure he would have been proud of you. it looks like you’re doing pretty well.’

She closed the subject quickly.

‘I’m independently wealthy,’ she said, smiling. ‘A rich aunt.’

Sharky laughed and raised his glass.

‘Okay, here’s to rich aunts.’

She sat with her chin in her hand and stared at him again, then shook her head. ‘I just, uh, I don’t believe it. I mean, a geologist working as an elevator man?’

‘I’m not an elevator man. I’m an engineer. An elevator man is an old guy with spots on his uniform who never stops in the right place. You know, he’s always too high or too low.’

She was laughing. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You always have to step up or step down.’

‘Besides,’ Sharky said, ‘I once knew a dentist who quit and became a mechanic.’

‘A mechanic?’

‘You know, in a garage. It’s what he got off on.’

‘And you get off on elevators?’

‘Well, you know, I’m not going to do this for the rest of my life. It keeps me off the Street.’

She felt warm towards him. Secure, comfortable. And she wanted him, wanted his arms around her, stretched out on the floor listening to DuLac, free and easy, just letting it happen. it was something that had been missing from her life for a long time. She had given up on it. It’s a silly notion, she thought. A nowhere notion. But it was a nice feeling.

And Sharky felt the same way. I want you, he thought. Here. Now. But he let it pass. Even a one-time shot wouldn’t work. No future. in a week he might be putting her in the slams. And yet, he didn’t want to leave it.

‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll come back again before I leave, okay? Maybe I’ll be lucky, catch you on a day when you’re having a whale stew or barracuda steak.’

This time she didn’t smile.

‘How about just plain steak?’ she said. ‘I can handle that.’

‘Any time,’ he said.

‘Then come back,’ she said and touched his cheek.

And Sharky realized that for a few minutes he had forgotten why he was there because he wanted to come back.